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Not Just A Cat Chapter Five
Not Just A Cat Chapter Five The young cat walked, on all fours, to the gigantic tree. She got herself in a climbing position and leapt from branch to branch until she finally reached the top of the tree. A gentle breeze came through, causing her fur to sway in the direction of the blowing wind. A soft rustle came through the trees. The cat thought that it was caused by the wind, but it was not… "Seraphiniaph?" The cat spun around to see a handsome young male cat decked out in armor behind her. Seraphiniaph smiled. "Hi, Jarube," Seraphiniaph replied. "Beautiful night, isn't it?" "Of course, my lady," Jarube said. "So… did you get the king?" "No, Jarube," Seraphiniaph replied, looking into the light of the moon. "He is protected by the Dragon Warrior, Furious Five, and the Dragon Sisters." "I see, my lady," Jarube said. "You need assistance." "No I don't, Jarube!" Seraphiniaph exclaimed. "I am extremely capable of doing this on my own!" She buried her face in her paws. "I must continue what my mother began," Seraphiniaph said quietly. "On my own. Like she did. I'm sorry, Jarube. I love you very much, but I must do this on my own. My mother would not be happy if I did it with assistance…" ---- I sighed as I dug into the delicious bowl of Po's "secret ingredient" soup. Every time I tasted it, I seemed to not want to stop eating it. It must have been because of some secret ingredient. Even though I knew that there really was no secret to the soup. It was hard to believe that there wasn't one. I looked up from the bowl and saw Kahn sitting at the end of the table, all by himself. He had an emotionless expression on is face, looking into his soup bowl. I wondered if it was because of… Shangari, her name was? I then looked to Trinity. The burn on her face had healed slightly, but I wasn't sure about the one on her elbow. She rubbed it a couple of times, and winced in pain often. I wondered if it would heal by the time that we went home. If it didn't, Mrs. Bacon would wonder why her daughter woke up with a bandaged and burnt elbow. I shrugged and went back to eating, reminding myself that it would be a while before we went back home. I began pondering the dream that I had had last night: I recalled seeing Kahn inside something that seemed like a cave. The cave was dark and lonely. Kahn was chained to the floor, unable to move. Then, I felt someone walk up in front of him. All I saw was its shadow. Its outline looked like a cat wearing a ripped dress. She was holding what looked like a long, gleaming sword. Its light reflected against the little light coming in from the front of the cave. She held the sword up, about to slash Kahn. Kahn gave one final scream, and the dream ended. As soon as I woke up that morning, I knew that I would have to protect Kahn. This probably meant that another adventure was in our future. "Okay, fine!" We heard a voice yell those two words from the other end of the table. Kahn had spoken. We all turned to face him. "I can't take keeping secrets from you guys anymore," he said, looking into his soup bowl. "About my past. About everything that's been going on." "Kahn," I heard Trinity mutter. "I… I know why the cats are here," Kahn admitted. Everyone gasped. "Don't just sit there, tell us!" Tigress insisted. He looked up, looking at absolutely nothing. He gave one big sigh before speaking. "It all started when I was born," he said, and I had the feeling that he was going to be telling a long story. After Kahn spoke, I was able to retell his story, because of the detail he put into telling it. Probably many times after, too. Apparently, Kahn was born in the animal world, in India. His parents were a family of very high power in the country. In fact, his father was the son of the king. His mother was his personal assistant. He was born during a huge war. It was the worst time to have children in India. His parents both were off fighting in the war for the first year (in cat years) of his life. On his first birthday (in cat years), the war ended. His mother died, and his father married another woman. This woman, another cat named Tatiana, had a best friend named Seraphiniaph, who visited Kahn's family often. One day, Tatiana introduced Kahn to Tatiana's friend's daughter, a cat named Shangari. Shangari was around Kahn's age, and had a crush on Kahn from the day they met. Shangari also had a love of Kung Fu. She had grown up in the Jade Palace, learning the art. Shangari told Seraphiniaph about her crush on Kahn. Shangari's mother and Kahn's father and stepmother talked about it, and concluded that now that Kahn was in his later teens (in cat years, that is), he needed a wife. They thought that Shangari would be the perfect wife for Kahn, and then decided that Kahn and Shangari should be married. So, Shangari became a princess of India, and the two were married. Kahn didn't want to marry her at first, but as his life went on, he began to love Shangari. A few months later, as Kahn and Shangari were growing closer together, they had a child. A single child. It was a girl. They decided to name her Seraphiniaph, after Shangari's mother. They called her 'Sera' for short. Around the time of Sera's second birthday (in human years), Shangari left the family to go to China to learn how to defend herself and her family and learn more Kung Fu. Sera wasn't informed of this, but found out soon after. She blamed Kahn for not stopping Shangari from leaving, and Kahn and Sera had a huge fight over it. Halfway through, Sera started using the Kung Fu that she had learned from Shangari to fight Kahn. Kahn knew little, and used it to defend himself. Sera won the battle, and left as soon as Kahn forfeited the match. Kahn then fainted of exhaustion and woke up in the human world, in an alley. He was found by a woman who brought him to the animal shelter. Trinity and Nicole adopted him, and we know the rest. After Kahn was finished telling his story, everyone was dead silent. The silence was so heavy that you could hear a pin drop to the floor. Many thoughts were running through my mind. "Kahn." We all spun around to see Master Shifu standing in the doorway, looking depressed. "Kahn," Master Shifu repeated. "Shangari was here when she was a girl, yes. She never arrived a second time. We found her drowned in a river a week after she was supposed to arrive here." Kahn nodded, not looking the slightest bit upset. "And my parents?" he asked. "Have you ever heard anything about them? Are they alive?" Shifu shook his head. "They died of old age about two years ago, I heard," he said. Everything was silent. "I'll be in Trinity's room," Kahn said. He ran from the room and into Trinity's bedroom. I heard him fling himself onto Trinity's bed. I would do so too, if that had all been thrown on me. "I guess that those cat warriors are Sera's," Monkey said. "Trying to track down Kahn and make him suffer under Sera's command," Nicole finished. "They have a big reason too, now that Shangari died while coming here," Trinity pointed out. "Shangari was one of my best students," Shifu said kind of softly. "She was a strong one, she was. Shangari was an amazing girl. She always toughed out the pain, never complained, and had much respect. But, unfortunately, all creations must die out. It's the way we were made." We all nodded sadly. "I need to go talk to him," Nicole said. She got out of her chair to go comfort Kahn, but Trinity and I grabbed her shoulders and pulled her down. "He needs to be alone," I said. Trinity nodded in agreement. Nicole nodded to us, a sign that she would listen to us and leave Kahn alone for a while. "So Kahn's supposed to be ruling India?" Trinity asked. "His parents aren't here, and neither is his wife. He's the next ruler in line, right? Unless Sera made herself queen." "There is currently no ruler of India," replied Shifu. "The only person who can rule is Sera, whose whereabouts are currently unknown." "Unless," I muttered. "Unless what?" I heard Po ask. "Unless that was Sera, attacking Kahn a few nights ago," I said. And if anyone said anything after that, they said it so softly that I couldn't hear it… ---- I sat over a stray pool that I had found, meditating on it. I was sitting on a gigantic lily pad that was floating on the pool. My eyes were closed, and I was glad for a moment of meditation. I heard Po's voice echoing in my head, from one of my first lessons with him. "The key to meditation is to clear your mind of all things," I remembered him saying. "Close your eyes and imagine a black canvas of nothing." "But I can't think of just a black sheet of nothing," I had told him. He had looked at me funny. "I… have a big imagination," I had admitted. "My imagination is always thinking about something. That's not something that a Kung Fu warrior wants to have, is it?" "Does it distract you?" he asked. "Yes," I said. "I daydream in class. I can't do my schoolwork a lot of times." I recalled looking him in the eye. "It's something that you need if you want to be what I want to be." "What do you want to be?" "An author." He has stared at me for a moment. "Well, what do you want to do with your life?" he asked. "Do you want to be an author, or do you want to do Kung Fu?" I looked up at him. "I thought that you would force me to do Kung Fu, since I'm one of the Dragon Sisters," I said. "Why should anyone else tell you what to do with your life?" he asked. "I mean, if you want to be an author, be an author. Why should I choose your future for you?" I looked up at him, smiling. "Thanks," I said. "But I just… I want to do both. I can do that, can't I?" "Hmm," he said. "I guess that you can be a warrior and an author at the same time. But your crazy imagination won't get you anywhere in our lesson." "I'll try my hardest to clear my mind, Master Po," I said, bowing. "Now, back to that lesson." Yep, that was a good training session. After that, I was pretty good at meditation, but still had trouble getting my imagination to stop making me daydream so much. I was relaxing, in my meditation zone, but all of a sudden, my imagination started back up. I saw myself fighting Sera, winning. All of a sudden, Sera pushed me backward into a stream, and I found my lungs burning for air. I opened my eyes and found myself in the pool, my wavy blonde hair wafting around me. I kicked my legs and pushed my arms up. I reached for the surface and took a breath of fresh air, grabbing onto the lily pad. Sometimes, my imagination drove me out of my mind.